A former TSMC engineer has been charged with stealing secrets from the pure play foundry and giving them to the China-based Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC).

The information is apparently proprietary information and other materials related to the foundry's 28nm process technology have been passed to HLMC.

According to the Hsinchu District Prosecutors Offic,e the engineer, known only by the handle "Hsu" accepted a job offer at Shanghai Huali Microelectronics (HLMC), but was arrested before starting the new job in Shanghai.

Earlier this year HLMC had headhunted a team of nearly 50 United Microelectronics (UMC) R&D engineers to help the China-based foundry move its 28nm process technology to mass production as early as possible.

Other China-based memory chipmakers have been aggressively headhunting talent from Taiwan-based DRAM and fabless companies and the question is how much IP they are bringing with them,

Micron Technology has reportedly taken legal actions against former employees at its Taiwan-based subsidiaries Inotera Memories and Rexchip Electronics, who allegedly stole the company's trade secrets and technologies to help China-based firms develop key DRAM technologies.

An ex-Google product manager has sued Google over its confidentiality policies on the grounds they violate California labour laws and involve spying on staff.

California labour laws give employees the right to discuss workplace issues with law enforcement, regulators, the media, and other employees. But Google has been accused of firing the employee for exercising his rights, then smearing his reputation in an internal email sent to the rest of the company.

The employee claims these policies are put in place to allegedly prevent the leaking of potentially damaging information to regulators or law enforcement. They stop employees from speaking out about illegal activity within the company, even to its own lawyers, and encourage them to report other employees suspected of leaking information.

According to the Verge one policy allegedly even prevents employees from writing a novel about working for a large Silicon Valley corporation -- like Dave Eggers' dystopian novel, The Circle -- without first getting final draft approval from Google.

The lawsuit says that Google’s Code of Conduct classifies confidential information as “everything at Google”. It operates a programme called “Stop Leaks” that encourages employees to grass up suspicious behaviour. This suspicious behaviour includes asking other employees detailed questions about projects or other work details.

The suit alleges that Google “suppresses information” about potentially illegally products or regulatory-skirting practices by advising employees not to include emails signalling how the company may have broken the law or violated contract terms.

A spokesGoogle said the lawsuit was without merit and it will defend it vigorously.

“We're very committed to an open internal culture, which means we frequently share with employees the details of product launches and confidential business information. Transparency is a huge part of our culture. Our employee confidentiality requirements are designed to protect proprietary business information, while not preventing employees from disclosing information about terms and conditions of employment, or workplace concerns," she said.

TSMC has won a court ruling that will prohibit a former employee from leaking trade secrets to Samsung.

Liang Mong-song left TSMC in 2009 and allegedly gave trade secrets to Samsung.

Now Taiwan's Supreme Court ruled in favour of TSMC in its lawsuit against and told Liang he cannot offer his services to Samsung before the end of the year, and must refrain from leaking any trade secrets related to TSMC's chip technology.

Liang has been accused of leaking trade secrets to Samsung, giving the Korean company an edge in its chip making. In response, TSMC has been waging a legal battle against Liang since 2011.

Liang's lawyer, Wellington Ku said restricting his client from working at a rival company would generate controversy as his non-compete agreement had already expired.

TSMC is continually updating its chip technology to remain competitive, but is losing chip orders to Samsung.

Still TSMC was a different company and making different products when Liang worked for them. Six years is a life-time in IT.

Former Intel employee Biswamohan Pani has been found guilty of stealing company secrets and he will have to do a three-years prison stint for it.

Pani stole chip design and manufacturing documentation that’s took an estimated $200 to $400 million to develop. Interestingly, he did so just after announcing his resignation and prior to taking a job with AMD, so we’re not sure whether to call it cunning or just plain daft.

He pleaded guilty to wire fraud back in April. He will do three years in federal prison and two year probation, in addition to a $17,500 fine. AMD claims not to have known about Pani’s plan and the company cooperated with investigators.

A former AT&T employee admitted to selling company secrets, such as sales numbers for Apple iPhone to traders who illegally bought shares on the information.

While sales figures are probably not something that should be a secret, in Apple's book Alnoor Ebrahim is the Rosenberg of the 21st century. Ebrahim is a US citizen born in Tanzania and is the latest person to plead guilty in the U.S. government's crackdown on insider trading.

Ebrahim was part of an expert-network ring where some employees of specialised firms such as Primary Global Research (PGR) helped funnel corporate secrets from consultants at companies to hedge funds. He told U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in Manhattan that he provided insider information concerning AT&T's sales of Apple's iPhone and RIM's Blackberry products, as well as other handset set devices sold through AT&T distribution channels.

Ebrahim admitted one charge of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. He is likely to face a maximum of two years in prison.

The next version of Apple’s mobile platform, iOS 5.1 beta, has been seeded to developers, and it’s yielding some of Jobs' Mob's future plans.

Under the bonnet of the new operating system are references to the next generation of iPad and iPhone, internally dubbed iPad 2.4 and iPhone 5,1. There is also a new device, dubbed J33, referenced in the update. It is probably the new Apple telly.

This does not tell us nearly as much as the Tame Apple press would suggest. The iphone 5.1 and iPad 2.4 tells us that there is another version of both toys coming. To be honest we sort of expected that, even though we were praying for the world to wake up to the Apple cult and move towards something deeper.

The fact that it is a 5.1 and a 2.4 indicates that the next releases will be a big yawn with not much extra to offer. 9to5 Mac thinks it might be a WiMAX-enabled, US telco Sprint-ready iPad.

The iPhone 5,1 could be a major new version of the iPhone, given that the iPhone 4S model was internally called 4,1. But then the iPhone4S was hardly a major upgrade on the iPhone 4.

As for iOS 5.1 beta itself, it brings several fixes notably it was supposed to fix the battery issues which meant that Apple fanboys were limited to showing the gizmo to only two uninterested “sorta friends” before the battery dried up.